To think that high levels of children being sent to school are the beginnings of lockdown resistance from the working age population

[NoIDontWatchLoveIsland]

I keep hearing widespread reports of high levels of children being sent to school under key worker provision. In the first lockdown many people did what they could to keep children at home, and employers tolerated this, but this time almost everyone I know even vaguely connected with a key worker occupation has been given a letter from their employer and told they must get their children to school. In almost all cases the parents are happy about this.

AIBU to think that this is the beginnings of resistance from younger people at continued school closures & lockdowns, when the statistics continue to be clear that few people under 50 who are not CEV are getting severely I'll with Covid?

YABU - no, people are supportive of school closures & wider lockdowns
YANBU - yes, younger people are becoming less tolerant of school closures/wider lockdowns

Currently in the Secondary I work at around 12 % of the cohort are in. Nearly all the EHCP and vulnerable are in and the rest are keyworkers.
There are at least 70 eligible families who have not taken a keyworker place... yet.
It is much much safer than 100% of the cohort. Still risky, but way less riskier than 1000 students and 100 members if staff.
It is a mitigation measure that actually works.
In the rest if Europe keyworker/vulnerable provision wasn't offered at all. God knows how it was managed, I presume people lost their jobs! I think this is something positive that our govt have committed too. No where near perfect but better than the alternative.

I’m really annoyed about it and feel like I have short changed my children.

I could have sent them in as DH is a key worker but on furlough, now they are stuck at home for what started at two weeks, progressed to the entire term!!! Now it’s rumours it will be the rest of the school year! My kids will suffer without the social interaction and being somehwere else other than the same four walls!!

Next time if it happens again I will be sending them in!!

If my niece who is a single mother, front line nurse is infected via her son who is sent into school so that she can go to work how does that help society? Again, if you CAN keep your children at then keep them at home. The smaller the numbers in school the safer they are.

Honestly the sheer selfishness of some people. Yes, I know it's difficult for children to have their learning affected. Yes, I know they are missing their friends. But we all have to have patience and do what is best for everyone, and not just ourselves.

I would love to keep my children at home safe and warm but unfortunately being a single mother and a key worker I have to send my girls to school I’m order to keep my job , there’s no flexibility to not work by my employer and if I don’t work then my children don’t have the Luxury of a safe warm house and food in their bellies. Not all key workers have a choice about sending their children to school .

Upper junior DC is in school today. DH is in HE working 60+ hours. I work for charities, currently also very long hours. DC was at home during first lockdown, and his mental health suffered, but this time school offered a place, have safe capacity, we accepted. Our elder DC are at home, we are all very compliant with lockdown, have been since the start and will continue to be so. This isn't resistance at all but acting in the best interests of our child at this moment in time.

‘the school key worker spaces filled up in a day... bubbles now closed’

They can do this, I’m a teacher. I’ve also had a text from dds school saying no more provision left.

@positivepixie

I think most people are just trying to keep themselves and their families going in whatever way they can. People base decisions on their own experiences and I think the large majority of people have not been affected by the virus through schools and so are making the choice to send their children in so that they can keep their jobs.

Yep, I think this sums it up.

I don't think many people have the energy right now for resistence.They are just trying to get through this all the best they can and, for many, that means their children being at school so they can focus on keeping jobs.

Lots of employers are not really offering the same understanding and level of flexibility this time around and, without it, parents are in a very tough spot.

I feel sorry for teachers and teaching assistants who are at risk daily. The schools were closed to most pupils to reduce the risk for everyone and this seems to be ignored mainly now. I know a few work colleagues who have said ‘I’m not doing that again’ when it comes to home schooling even though they can. It’s pure selfishness. They don’t want it impacting them but if it does they’ll sharp shout. My friend lost her mam and dad to covid within a week of each other and they were late 60s. I can totally understand why this is lasting so long because people are selfish.

We absolutely need to live with this. However not when cases are so high with something that is obviously more contagious and we still haven’t got an effective tracing system. Or think to close borders or even test people.

Cases were low in summer this could of worked so much better.

Open up all the shops,pubs, whatever. Free for all. They would all be closed within weeks with staff off sick never mind the isolation. Except now the government won’t help those business as they are ‘open’ they haven’t closed them. No furlough either. All you would get is closed businesses and even further redundancy plus the potential supply chain illness, hospitals/gps not able to function and school closures too as staff off sick.

Shielding the cev... what about all those parents, shop workers, hospital staff and others that are cev but part of the functioning aspect of society, who replaces them in their jobs. How do you protect them from school illness brought home? It’s not just the elderly or those that don’t work.

I’m as sick of this as anyone so much I enjoy has been mostly closed since March. But ‘resisting’ won’t make it go away unfortunately.

Sent nursery aged child in. DH and I can’t work with 3.5 year old child to look after and the mortgage and bills need to be paid. We had to do it last time as the nursery was closed and we almost had breakdowns trying to tag team looking after both kids whilst working. Our organisations were busier than ever so no chance of furlough.

I do believe people are becoming less and less compliant to the point of non-compliance when it comes to schools!

Which really grates, because we'll all be negatively affected by this. However, I do have some degree of sympathy.

It's a mess indeed.

My profession did not count as key workers last time, now we do (although not all schools will accept it). That now means that our employers are cutting us no slack for not doing every aspect of our jobs while working from home with added childcare and homeschooling.

In these circumstances, I wouldn't blame people for taking up the offers of a place at school if they can get them in these circumstances. It's not resistance, it's desperation.

It's got bugger all to do with resistance and is about a) people being worried about losing their jobs and b) realising that home schooling is not the joyous pastime they fondly imagined but actually a huge pain in the arse.

@Nicknamegoeshere

I don't understand why you'd send your kids in if you are a SAHP?

Laziness Not liking their kids Entitlement Not wanting their child to fall behind Pressure from the child because they're bored at home

Many reasons. Not all are valid.

@Chaotica

My profession did not count as key workers last time, now we do (although not all schools will accept it). That now means that our employers are cutting us no slack for not doing every aspect of our jobs while working from home with added childcare and homeschooling.

In these circumstances, I wouldn't blame people for taking up the offers of a place at school if they can get them in these circumstances. It's not resistance, it's desperation.

Do you have a letter from your employer saying your a key worker ?

I think it's to be expected to be honest.

Lots of people will struggle to work, even leading to job loss if they can't fulfill their working requirements in some cases. Most people in that situation will send their child to school if they can. You can't expect people to risk their employment when it's what pays the bills and puts food on the table if they don't have to. Anyone who does is being unrealistic.

Add to that that people will have gotten an idea last time as to what they can actually reasonably cope with whilst also working, and the fact that remote schooling seems to be a lot more intense this time round, people will take the places if they can.

Add even further the fact that employers will only be patient for a certain amount of time. Rightly or wrongly, businesses won't have the same level of patience with parents trying to juggle work and childcare forever. People know this and it's scary.

I just don’t think schools should shut. We need an absolutely huge push to keep them open. Eg keep vulnerable teachers off/ use assistants if necessary or even furloughed staff. But kids should be in school. This is utterly desperate for the UK’s children and until my last breath I will fight for them
to be in school.

I hope so. There has to be some resistance to this total insanity.

People are certainly getting less tolerant to school closure

If you’d gone by posts on here below they closed you’d think high proportion wanted it. In reality it’s the opposite and majority will use school space when they can. You can see by KW take up.

My friend who works for university hospital in safeguarding and her husband NHS nurse dropped their children in this morning, one of the mums whose partner runs a shop was dropping both of hers in ( I know this mum through my husband) She doesn’t help in the shop or have any kind of job , in fact she’s a lazy, self entitled parent that thinks she should not have to home school if schools are open for key workers. She’s obviously blagged a place, goodness knows how. This makes my blood boil

But ‘resisting’ won’t make it go away unfortunately

I think it's called desperation in a lot of cases rather than resistance. A lot of people aren't going to sit back and let their job go down the shitter for the good of society if they can help it, i.e. by sending their kids to school.

If someone's boss considered them to be key workers, and they didn't utilise the key worker childcare provision then the employer surely would say that the employee isn't doing enough to make sure they're doing their job, and will just dismiss them?

I dont think this really is about people rising up, I think it's about people being oppressed in all aspects.

More and more jobs are considered KW, so more and more people have to send their kids to school or else they'll lose their jobs. Not necessarily because they want to send their kids into school.

Are there any actual stats on number of children in school this time round, though? In our school it's tiny numbers - 8 in DS' year group of 120 (and that's reception, where there's generally more need to send children in - harder to have a 4/5 year at home than a 10 year old, etc) And the school haven't restricted provision to get to that number, they've encouraged keeping children at home if you can but kids with only 1 KW parent/wfh KW parents can take up places if they need. I'm surprised because I would have though there were high number of KW parents (we have three big hospitals in our catchment area, there are loads of schools close by (London borough) so lots of teacher parents) but nonetheless I don't recognise this whole "oh god so many children are in school" panic.
Would be good to have actual numbers rather than just anecdotes, which presumably we'll be clearer on after the first week of term.

Re those assuming that SAHP should be keeping their children at home or that they only send them in to school because they don't like their children or are lazy, this is a little silly.
Until this ludicrousness started, we assumed as a society that sending children in to school for both their educational and social wellbeing was a good idea. That is one of the reasons why we do and also why we pay taxes and why generally we are supportive of teachers. The fact that there is now one different virus extant does not mean that all of us in society have concluded that school education is simply about childcare and ridding ourselves of our progeny.